Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Celebrity Smackdown IV: Women's History Edition

Women's History Month* is almost over, but we're going to celebrate it Panopticon style with a Celebrity Smackdown!

The contest: Field Hockey

The teams:

squaring off against:

Without in any way wishing to drag the Smackdown into the realm of educational toys, something did occur to me as the teams were lining up. It has been very difficult throughout history for a woman to become notable without first becoming at least somewhat notorious. Unless you're a nurse or a nun, you're likely going to get a bad rap - and even then your success may ruffle feathers.

There's a lesson in that, no?

The Good/Bad designation is tongue-in-cheek, with a few guidelines based on the woman's career.

Good: nurses, canonized saints, devoted wives, public servants,** ladies who wrote about nice things, ladies who pursued gentle arts like writing and painting without stirring up too much trouble

Bad: professional whores, open lesbians, those connected (horrors!) with the stage, ladies who wrote about unladylike subjects that stirred shit up

*I think it's so nice how women get a month. It suggests that during the other 11 months they were getting their nails done. But I suppose it's better than nothing.

**That's how Elizabeth Cady Stanton wound up as captain on the Good side, although she really could have gone either way. Certainly in her own time realtively few men would have considered her a servant of the public good. But when she steps up and says, "I'm in charge," you don't argue.

You didn't specify how much toast and peach dessert Melba's been eating lately, and if Toklas brought enough brownies for the whole team. I don't think the bad girls could get it together; I think there'd be a lot of infighting. The good girls know how to work hard and get what they want. So there.

Actually I think a lot of these ladies could have gone either way. The only "bad" thing Ms. Toklas did was unkowlingly offer a hashish brownie recipe and muffdive Ms. Stein. And honestly, if you've ever (and I KNOW you have, Franklin) read Lytton Strachey on Florence Nightingale, I don't know that you would have put her on the "good" team.

I think it could go either way. The "good" girls could be putting up a smoke screen, and then they get you in the shins. Dirty pool.

I find the whole "Women's History Month" just a bit bizarre, especially because if there was ever a "Men's History Month" people would lose their sh*t! I think I will stick to calling it "March" and continue on with my manicure.

I never did see much difference between "good" and "bad" people, those who are judged to be bad are being judged by the source as much as by themselves. Rant: people make mistakes and people get caught making mistakes, or don't get caught. But everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is unscrupulous in some decisions, especially if they really really care about the Cause they are espousing. Rant over. Sillyness may continue! I like my bad women really good and my good women really bad!

You shouldn't forget Victoria C. Woodhull... first woman candidate for president. She'd be on the "Bad Girl" list because in addition to women's sufferage she also promoted free love, which made Susan B. Anthony et al turn against her.

I am not even sure who Elizabeth Gaskell is but I used to work with a woman (or FOR a DOKTOR, as she would have put it) named Gaskell who was screwing her way to the top of academia, having few merits of her own, so I could never vote for anyone with her name. Yes, I'm prejudiced.

Mrs. Cady Stanton knew how to get things done. She didn't let people get away with messing with her. Miss Nightingale was the same. I think there's a misconception of "good girl" as wuss. A lot of powerful women have been mislabeled.

Haven't had a chance to listen to the podcast yet. I moved last weekend and I don't have my DSL yet. The pain... But moving led me to a question: when I took the mattress pad off my mattress, there was this Serta label with nine sheep staring at me, and I found myself wondering, has Dolores ever done any modeling for Serta?

Having known a few field hockey players, I'd have to say good girls here. Tough call, but some of your good girls were tough wenches. Besides, as someone else commented, the bad girls were more of a smoke the ciggies behind the gym crowd.

Now, had you said soccer, I'm thinking bad girls - because most of those ladies could probably see the field hockey kilt thing as a proper uniform for a lady, but none of them were going to do a Brandy Chastain and go celebrate in sports bra.

Damn it!I voted Good Girls, thinking that they had *god* on their side and all. But apparantly they are a tad weak in the organized sports arena since they're getting their asses handed to them by the Whores!

Just proves that piety counts for naught in the afterlife. I'm off to plan an affair, then. With an actor. And brownies.

No fair! How could you leave Carrie Nation off the Good Girls team: "Standing at nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, Carry Amelia Moore Nation, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, cut an imposing figure. Wielding a hatchet, she was downright frightful."

Franklin ..Florence was really a very bad girl ..mad as all outdoors ...still glad to see the baddies are winning ... a touch of the St. Trinians.......... as for Flo.she spent sometime trying to trash Mary Seacole ,threw a Nun out of a window ...and hardly anyone survived her treatment .

Goodness Franklin such a lot of old farts..you are really missing out not having Ethel Kennedy she could really wack a ball,hockey,tennis,footie..only problem is good? or bad? Holly's Mum.....good in my books .

Really, the winner should be whatever team Carrie Nation was on. Smash, ladies, smash!Beth said there'd be too much infighting on the bad girls team, but I think they'd unite against a common foe (goody two shoes! gasp!) and THEN they'd beat the snot out of each other.And sadly, my women's history is deeply lacking. I'll need to google these ladies on my lunch hour and ejimacate myself.

Good or bad, Florence wouldn't play on any team; she was always totally out for Number One. She didn't stand up for women, only for herself. Now, is that Good or Bad? I'm surprised that someone who is as knowlegable about the sayings of Oscar Wilde as I assume you are should use this as the distinguishing characteristic for the teams; after all, 'It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.' But perhaps you have used his definition of fiction, where 'The good end happily and the bad unhappily.' I think I need more information before I can place my vote :)

Bad girls are great at individual competition--they cheat, they flirt with the referees, they buy the fight. But in team sports? I'm not seeing it. The good girls are more organized and actually show up for practice.

gotta vote for the good girls. Cady Stanton is one tough broad, for starters. And as the proud veteran of 12 years of Catholic education, which included playing basektball with nuns, let me tell you that sisters play to win.

You had one canonized saint in there, but there are a few women in religion sitting on the bench: Mary Baker Eddy, Aimee Semple McPherson, Mother Joseph and Mother Emilie Gamelin of the Sisters of Providence (who founded hospitals in Montreal and Vancouver Wa in the 19th century). Aimee would be there with the bad girls; Mama Jo and Emmy would be in charge of pregame training of the good girls. Marie Curie would be concocting and mixing special liniments for injuries.

Man, I can't believe you missed out on having Matilda Joslyn Gage playing for the bad girls. She was so owed a grudge match after that bitch Stanton sold out....

according to http://www.nps.gov/wori/gagebio.htm

"When Anthony led her followers in merging the two existing suffrage organizations, thereby bringing in the conservative Women's Christian Temperance Union forces, Gage left the suffrage movement and formed the anti-Church group she had been considering. Made up of anarchists, prison reformers, labor leaders and feminists, the Woman's National Liberal Union was viewed as one of the most radical organizations in the country, and Gage's mail was intercepted by the government.

Stanton chose to become president of Anthony's combined National American Woman Suffrage Association rather than join Gage's group. Anthony denounced Gage's "secession" (as she called it) from the suffrage ranks, and Gage spent her last eight years estranged from most of her movement allies and friends of the previous forty years.

Loneliness was not the only price Gage paid for her uncompromising radical vision. Historians tracing an undeviating line of a single-issue suffrage struggle from the 1848 Seneca Falls convention to the adoption of woman suffrage in 1920, don't know where to fit Gage. The contemporariness of her thought makes Gage even today a threat to the status quo."

And, without her *influence* on her son in law, L Frank Baum I doubt that the Oz books would have got written...

The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past scarlet blade gold. To change your future, alter your decisions today scarlet blade gold, Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards scarlet blade gold, but it takes character to keep you there.

The bravery of each bull is then rated with care according to the number of times he demonstrates his willingness to charge in spite of the sting of the blade Runescape gp, Henceforth will I recognize that each day I am tested by life in like manner. If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed rs gp, Your future depends on your dreams Runescape2 Gold. So go to sleep. Do not keep anything for a special occasion..

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